The only thing we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic. So if what I say now seems to you to be very reasonable, then I have failed completely. Only if what I tell you appears absolutely unbelievable, have we any chance of visualizing the future as it really will happen.

I suspect, and here Lehrer will not agree, that responsible, staid journalism like his, as practiced in America, is part of the problem. The attempt at "balance" requires some definition of the scope of acceptable opinion. As Eli taught me, the implicit limits of discourse, which oddly include Singer and exclude Lovelock, for instance, is called the Overton WIndow in some circles.

"The CBC, in its decision making process, is entitled to make its own editorial determination about what opinions are in the mainstream, and need to be reflected, and what opinions are on the margins, and can be given the editorial hook they so often deserve…"

That is pretty much the point. Journalism is not only entitled to make such decisions. It is obligated to do so, and it is obligated to dosoresponsibly and competently. That is what we pay our journalists for.

In the future of fossil fuels it seems there are three outcomes -- they will all be burned (quickly), they will all be burned (at a decreasing rate, which can be somehow compensated), or we will somehow shift off them before burning every last available drop.

Perhaps suppliers should be required to create compensating carbon sinks for each unit of fossil fuel they produce. Rather than putting the carbon tax on the consumption side, tax the source. And the world of consumers would then be in equal balance, and conservation efforts in Europe would not be for naught. Not sure what international body would accomplish this, however. (To put it mildly.)

The opposite approach, as developed by Cheney and co., described here in the London Review of Books: